Psycho Philes
University of Houston Department of Psychology
A Newsletter for Faculty, Students, and Staff
Issue 99:7
August 1999
Beginning September 1, 1999, the State of Texas is
implementing a new prompt payment law. When
purchasing items where you receive invoices, the
invoices must be processed within thirty days of
receipt of the goods or invoice or there will be a 1%
late fee charged to your account starting on the 31st
day of amount due. The department has no
control over this fee and it will automatically be taken
from a designated account. Everyone should begin
to keep track of the dates of receipt of goods and
invoices. Equally important, please bring your
invoices to the department business office as soon
as possible upon receipt. This does not apply to
goods purchased with out of pocket funds where
reimbursement is being requested.
Reminders
Sept 6: Office closed in observance of the labor
Day holiday.
Sept 10:
Deadline for applications to the Social
Sciences Committee for the Protection of Human
Subjects.
Sept 10:
Staff meeting 10:00 a.m. in the
conference room of 126 Heyne. Contact Trasetta
Jones for agenda items.
Sept
Selective Service Registration for New Hires
15: Faculty meeting 3:00 – 4:00 p.m. in
Room 135 Heyne.
Effective September 1, 1999, all males, ages 18
through 25, must show proof of registration with the
Selective Service prior to being employed by a state
agency. This proof is not required for persons
already working for the University of Houston, but will
be enforced for all new hires. A verification form
must now be completed by the hiring unit and
forwarded to the Department of Human Resources
along with the standard sign-up paperwork. This
form is available through Caroline Watkins in the
Department Business Office, 126 Heyne. Please
keep this new regulation in mind when hiring as the
University will not be able to place someone on
payroll until proof of such registration has been
provided. How to register? The fastest way to
register is through the computer on-line.
Registration forms are available at any U.S. Post
Office. A registration application card may also be
filled out and sent in to the Selective Service System.
When registering on-line, proof of registration will be
sent within two weeks. When mailing in a
registration card, it can take about 30 to 90 days to
receive an acknowledgement card. Please see the
Selective Service System web site for more detailed
information at www.sss.gov. To register on-line, the
web address is www4.sss.gov/regver/register1.asp.
Sept 17: Last day for students to apply for Fall
1999 graduation.
Sept 20:
Last day for students to drop a class
without a grade.
News and Notes
Welcome New Graduate Students
The Department of Psychology extends a warm
welcome to our new graduate students. The Fall
1999 entering class is comprised of:
Clinical Program
Rachel Burmeister, Robert Collins, Charles Green,
Nicholas Pastorek,
Gregory Schrimsher, Nancy Skopp, Monica Vann.
Developmental Program
Clare Caton, Shawn Davis, Linda Halgunseth,
Jennifer Henk.
Industrial/Organizational Program
Gray Anderson, Leah Luse, Lebinh Luu, Lacey
Schmidt, Edwin Sellas.
We wish all of you a wonderful graduate school
experience!
Prompt Payment Law
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OHP Research Methodology Exchange
As Fall nears, succession plans will be underway.
Take a moment to look over our Electoral Protocol
for the Chairperson Elections. To ensure that a
vibrant GSC continues to represent your needs, cast
your ballot anytime during Sept. 1-8.
--Aruni Nanayakkara
In connection with the training grant in Occupational
Health Psychology (OHP), Barbara Ellis and Lois
Tetrick have organized a colloquium series entitled
“Research and Methodology Exchange”. The
colloquium series is designed to bring together
faculty from various areas to talk about their
research, a particular methodology, or both that are
related to OHP. The Exchange will consist of
monthly presentations that focus on a substantive
topic relevant to OHP (e.g., research on stress), a
particular methodology that could be used in
conducting research on OHP-type phenomena (e.g.,
longitudinal data analysis), or both (e.g., the use of
hierarchical linear models to analyze data on
violence at home and at work). In addition, the
Research and Methodology Exchange will include
two one-day workshops conducted by experts who
specialize in methodology that is relevant to OHP, for
example, epidemiology. The Research and
Methodology Exchange is designed to foster new
research related to OHP, increase collaboration
among participating faculty and graduate students,
and identify OHP methodological topics for inclusion
in the graduate curriculum.
We are pleased to announce that Dr. Joe Carbonari
will give the first lecture in the Research and
Methodology Exchange colloquium series at 3:00
PM, Wednesday, September 1, 1999, in Room
135, Heyne. Dr. Carbonari’s talk is titled: Gender
Differences in Alcoholism Treatment: A
Structural Equation Modeling Investigation of a
Second Order Interaction.
All faculty and graduate students are invited to
attend.
GSC ELECTORAL PROTOCOL
• Area Representatives will submit to the
Chairperson a list of Eligible voters (including
last names) from each of their areas (The
deadline was Aug. 2nd). Eligible voters are
current graduate psychology students other than
incoming first years.
• Elections for GSC Chairpersons will be held
during the period Sept 1st – 8th.
• In order to inform eligible voters, this Electoral
Process will be displayed on both LISTSERVE
and Psychophiles.
• Candidates, who have announced their
willingness to run and have been deemed
eligible, will submit by email to the Chairperson a
short paragraph (not more than 100 words) as to
why voters should elect them. Submissions will
not be accepted after 5 PM August 24th.
• Based on the list of Eligible voters, the
Chairperson will create the appropriate number
of ballots and put them in their respective
mailboxes by Sept 1st.
• In the event that an eligible voter does not
receive a ballot, s/he can contact the
Chairperson to receive one.
• The ballots will be numbered so as to prevent
ineligible ballots being cast.
• Voters can cast their votes for two current
psychology graduate students (besides first
years).
• Votes will be counted within a week and
successful candidates informed of the results.
• The Graduate Student Director will provide
independent oversight over the counting of
ballots.
• The Chairperson will inform graduate students
collectively by Listserve and Psychophiles, once
successful candidates have accepted their
positions.
• At our September meeting (usually held at the
end of the month), reins will be handed over to
the new officers..
• Any questions with regard to the above should
be addressed to aruni@bayou.uh.edu.
GSC News
As usual, we have been busy. Our web page will be
up anyday so check it out! We have also submitted
to the Academic Office a list of courses that students
from each program are eligible to teach in order
tofacilitate the match between our teaching interests
and departmental needs. We also enjoyed helping
out with the incoming graduate student orientation.
We are pleased to note that our efforts to make the
GIF a center of student activity is fast becoming a
reality. Remember that there are filing drawers in
the Conference room. If you were wondering where
to place old teaching materials-this is it! There are
only 15 drawers to share-so place your files with your
name on it before the drawers are all full. To
keep our stuff safe, remember to shut the doors
behind you. We also want to extend our deep
appreciation to both faculty and students who
donated reference materials, appliances, utensils
and even hot sauce for our convenience. On behalf
of all the graduate students-Thank You!
P s y c h o P h i l e s P s y c h o P h i l e s PsychoPhiles is published monthly. Submissions
should be sent to Suzanne Kieffer at kieffer@uh.edu or
directed to the business office (Room 126 Heyne). All
submissions are subject to editing for space and content.
What’s New In Research
IERI Grant for the Dr. David Francis Project
2 P s y c h o P h i l e s P s y c h o P h i l e s
This grant was submitted as a group project
involving Dr. David Francis’ group at CARS-UH,
Drs. Jack Fletcher, Barbara Foorman, and Patricia
Mathes at CARS-UT, Dr. Andy Pappanicalou of
U.T.H.S.C. Dept. of Neurosurgery, Dr. Charles
Perfetti of the University of Pittsburgh, and Dr. Mark
Seidenberg of Stanford. Dr. Fletcher is the P.I. with
CARS-UH serving as the Data Center.
IERI (Inter-Agency Educational Research Inititaitve)
is an inter-agency initiative that requested grant
applications related to educational research and
improvement. It is jointly sponsored by NSF,
Department of Education, and the National Institute
of Child Health and Human Development. This first
year, only NSF and DOE are providing funding and
NICHD is an "intellectual partner." The final budget
will be slightly under $4M for three years, including
indirects. The UH portion, including indirect costs, is
approximately $650K for the three years. There
were over 250 proposals submitted and 14 were
selected for funding. The Francis project members
are very excited about this new project, and a very
brief description of the proposal is provided below.
needed assistance to students throughout the state.
While the TEA deserves the credit for its successful
application and the significant impact that the Statewide Reading Initiative has had on student
outcomes, we at CARS-UH and CARS-UT are very
proud to have been able to assist the TEA in these
endeavors.
Dr. H. Julia Hannay began her term as President of
the Association for Doctoral Education in Clinical
Neuropsychology by chairing the meeting of the
organization held on August 20, 1999 at APA in
Boston.
Dr. Gordon L. Paul, Hugh Roy and Lillie Cranz
Cullen Distinquished Chair in Psychology, received
the 1999 Award for Distinguished Scientific
Contributions to Clinical Psychology from the Society
of Clinical Psychology on August 21st at the annual
convention of the American Psychological
Association in Boston, MA. The Society of Clinical
Psychology, Division 12 of the American
Psychological Association, is the largest organization
of clinical psychologists in the nation. Dr. Paul
presented an invited address entitled, "EvidenceBased Practices in Inpatient and Residential
Facilities."
This proposal seeks to develop an interdisciplinary
approach to large-scale educational interventions
that provides for the integration of research and
education around issues involving the development
of beginning reading skills. Three projects were
proposed, centered around a large-scale educational
intervention in a local school district. Project 1 is the
educational intervention study. Project 2 is a brain
imaging study that investigates functional changes in
brain activity that occur as children transition from
being non-readers to being readers. Project 3 is a
study of text decodability that will attempt to model
how features of words and text interact with
curriculum and child characteristics to make words
decodable, which is a pre-requisite for text
comprehension.
Dr. Gordon L. Paul was also the subject of Dr.
Robert Musburger's radio interview program,
"Images," broadcast on August 22, 1999. Dr. Paul
discussed effective assessments and psychosocial
treatments for anxiety related problems and for
psychoses--procedures that rely on education and
training rather than drugs. While Dr. Paul's work
with psychoses is primarily focused in hospitals,
state-of-the-art nonpharmocological treatments for
depression and anxiety related problems are
available through the University of Houston's
Psychological Research and Services Center.
Update on CARS from Dr. David Francis
CARS-UH (Center for Academic and Reading Skills)
and CARS-UT are very happy to learn that the Texas
Education Agency's Reading Excellence Act grant
application was awarded approximately $35M.
CARS-UH and CARS-UT assisted the TEA in
crafting its application, and have been active
participants in implementing Texas' State-wide
Reading Initiative, which played a significant role in
the application. Of the 17 state proposals funded
under REA, Texas received the largest amount of
Dr. Mary Velasquez's grant application to the
National Cancer Institute entitled "Parent Assisted
Smoking Cessation" has been funded. It will be a
subcontract with the University of Texas School of
Public Health and she will be UH PI.
PUBLICATIONS, PRESENTATIONS, AND WORKSHOPS
Drotar, D., Olness, K., Wiznitzer, M.,
Schatschneider, C., Marum, L., Guay, L.,
Fagan, J., Hom, D., Svilar, G., Ndugwa,
C., & Mayengo, R.K. (1999). Neurodevelopmental
outcomes of Ugandan infants with HIV infection: An
application of growth curve analysis. Health
Psychology, 18(2), 114-121.
money. These funds are largely for direct assistance
to schools that have large numbers of at-risk
students and a willingness to implement research
based reading instruction programs to improve
student outcomes. These funds will provide much
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department must have our computing equipment off
and no one should be in either of our department's
buildings from December 31, 1999 to January 1,
2000. More details will follow as the date
approaches.
Oleson, K. C., Poehlmann, K. M., & Ross, L. L.
(1999, August). Subjective overachievement:
Individual differences in self-doubt and concern with
performance. In K. M. Poehlmann & K. C. Oleson
(Chairs), Self-doubt in thoughts, feelings, and
actions. Symposium conducted at the meeting of
the American Psychological Association, Boston,
MA.
Coffee Break
A big welcome to Patti Tolar, the new Senior
Advisor in the Academic Office. Patti comes to us
from the advising office of UH's School of
Communication and has an educational background
in both Psychology and Counseling. We look
forward to working with you, Patti!
Poehlmann, K. M., & Oleson, K. C. (1999, August).
Self-doubt in thoughts, feelings, and actions. CoChairs of Symposium conducted at the meeting of
the American Psychological Association, Boston,
MA.
Job Announcements
Robie, C., & Ryan, A. M. (1999). Effects of
nonlinearity and heteroscedasticity on the validity of
conscientiousness in predicting
overall job performance. International Journal of
Selection and Assessment, 7, 157-169.
The Center for Academic and Research Skills
(CARS) – University of Houston is currently looking
for individuals to join our research team in the
following positions; Senior Database Manager, SAS
Programmer, and Project Manager (or Research
Assistant). CARS-UH is currently involved in eight
projects, including four large federally funded grants,
two state funded initiatives, and two program
evaluation efforts in the Houston community. Most
projects are related to reading and academic skills
and development in young children.
For more information about the Senior Database
Manager or Programmer position, please call Penny
Kinsella at (713) 743-8529. For more information
about the Project Manager (or RA) position, please
call Dr. Coleen Carlson at (713) 743-8592.
Robie, C. (1999). [Review of the book Individual
Psychological Assessment: Predicting behavior in
organizational settings]. International Journal of
Selection and Assessment, 7, 181-182.
Schatschneider, C., Francis, D.J., Foorman, B.F.,
Fletcher, J.M., & Mehta, P. (1999). The
dimensionality of phonological awareness: An
application of item response theory. Journal of
Educational Psychology, 91, 1-11.
On The Lighter Side
Smith, C. S., Robie, C., Folkard, S., Barton, J.,
Macdonald, I., Smith, L., Spelten, E., Totterdell, P., &
Costa, G. (1999). A process model of shiftwork and
health. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology,
4, 207-218.
Word Power - New Words for the Week
Dopelar effect (n.) The tendency of stupid ideas to
seem smarter when you come at them rapidly.
Grantartica (n.) The cold, isolated place where art
companies dwell without funding.
Intaxication (n.) Euphoria at getting a tax refund,
which lasts until you realize it was your money to
start with.
Velasquez, M.M., Carbonari, J. P., & Di Clemente,
C.C. (1999). Psychiatric severity and behavior
change in alcoholism treatment: The relation of the
transtheoretical model variables to psychiatric
distress in dually diagnosed patients. Addictive
Behaviors, 24 (4), 481-496.
Computing Notes
Y2K Preparations
The current University plan is to request that all
computing equipment on campus (with the exception
of servers) be shut down during the holiday break of
December 23, 1999 to January 3, 2000. Please let
Suzanne Kieffer (kieffer@uh.edu) or Sean
Woodward (psychservice@uh.edu) know if you will
have any essential research activities continuing
through that time period. At the very least, our
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